January 16, 2002: My dad.

So, as previously mentioned, earlier this month we found out my Dad had some kind of heart failure. The doctors' assumption was that it was congestive heart failure. We had no idea he was having any heart problems, but, he kept coughing more and more and getting progressively weaker. We thought he might have pneumonia or something... well... it turns out the swelling of his heart was putting pressure on his lung, causing a fluid build up. Nasty!

So they tossed him on medicine for the pulmonary edema right away. He perked up a lot after that, enough that it was suddenly very obvious just how bad off he was before.

At this point I'm glad they figured it out before he had a heart attack. But... and this still gets me riled up... the thing is, he apparently had an irregular/abnormal EKG back during August of 2000, and the doctors never actually told him, and they didn't follow up on it. Nice, eh?

At least they know NOW, and told him so this time. Grr.

Anyway, so, he went in for the heart catheterization and the results were weird yet positive. They didn't find ANY blockage or plaque inside the heart or arteries as they'd originally expected, so, that means he doesn't need angioplasty, a stint, or a bypass.

On the other hand, that means they have no idea why his heart isn't working right, and it's not something they can fix with any of the aforementioned surgeries. So apparently they're going to try and figure out the rest of what's really going on, and manage it with medication.

Either way he still seems a LOT healthier than before, and my mother says he could still hang around for decades yet... so... I guess that's as close to "fine" as possible.

I haven't talked to him much about any of this, since my brother and I have been trying to basically play it cool until we knew what the deal was. Even though we still don't exactly know, at least we do know he doesn't need a risky bypass and he isn't 99% clogged or anything like that.